Time flies when the earth goes around the sun

Time flies when the earth goes around the sun

I know. I’m lazy. But I made myself a New Years resolution that I would write myself something really special. Which means I have ’til December, right? – Catherine O’Hara

Maybe it’s a casualty of having a January birthday, but I’ve always found myself a little bit delayed when it came to reviewing my past year and thinking about the next one. I can never seem to get up the energy to do that on January first. I always think to myself, “That’s a birthday thing anyway.” This year especially, because, despite my best efforts to think of new years and birthdays as nothing more than ephemera, it’s hard for me not to acknowledge that I’ve got a whole decade to look back on. Not just a year.

2015 was a weird year for me. There were moments of sorrow and joy, just like any year, but I think this was the first year that I truly began to consider myself “an adult” (sort of). Several events stand out as the reason why, but I think I’m going to highlight one in particular.

In February, my beloved grandfather passed away at the age of 93. He had lived a long and loved filled life and looking back on this has caused me to reevaluate a lot of my priorities. For a long time, at the top of my life goals list, were fame and admiration of others. I wanted to be liked, but not because of who I was, but for what I had accomplished. I thought that the only way to get people to like me was to be the 100% absolute best at what I did; to have a high profile career, etc. My grandfather worked in a dairy. None of you know his name. But there’s nothing wrong with that. His life was still a beautiful story of love, struggle, and triumph. From this I have two new goals for 2016 and the next decade of my life:

1. Better cultivate and care for my relationships with my family and current friend groups and be more open to making of more friends and joining of communities.

Even if that means I have to start using facebook again.

2. Do the things that make me happy. Live life with joy and be less concerned about the perceptions of others.

I realize that both of these things sound tremendous wishy-washy, and believe me I do have a large set of more specific and concrete goals taped above my desk. I just want to highlight that January is a lovely month. It comes with its own refresh button.